Cissy Houston Opens Up To Oprah

For the first time, Cissy Houston talked about the last moment she spoke with her daughter Whitney before her tragic death.

She told Oprah that Whitney had actually called her the day before to say she loved her and was going to come visit her. She says she had no idea it would be the last time she would talk to her daughter.

In her book, Remembering Whitney, she writes that she was devastated when her son, Gary, called to tell her on February 11 that Whitney had passed and even now says she remembers little of that day.

“I was alone,” she said. “I was a wreck, I was just a wreck.”

In the book, Cissy writes of Whitney’s decline and how she staged an intervention for her. “I went down there, and did what I had to do,” she explained.

In 2009, Whitney talked about this intervention with Oprah saying Cissy gave her an ultimatum: go to rehab or retire from music.

In the Oprah interview from four years ago, Whitney also talked about her troubled marriage with husband, Bobby Brown, who Cissy says she knew was bad news from the beginning. She also explained that she wanted to help Whitney get out of the marriage sooner, but “she wasn’t ready to get out.”

Though Cissy has not spoken with Bobby since Whitney’s death, she says she doesn’t dislike him.

“I didn’t particularly like the way he treated my daughter, but people can only treat you the way you let them,” she said.

“I wanted to kill her, I held myself back,” she said. “[Whitney] was so sad and pitiful. I wanted to hurt her, because it hurt me so bad.”

As for rumors that Whitney was involved in a relationship with Robyn, Cissy says she knew they cared deeply for each other, but would not have condoned her being in a lesbian relationship sternly saying, “not at all.”

As Cissy continues to deal with Whitney’s death, she hopes she can repair her relationship with her granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina, which she said right now is “iffy.” Cissy hopes she can help her live a clean life and keep her from taking the same path as her mother.

“I want her to do the right thing,” she said. “And guide her to the right place in her life.”